Meeting Reports July 2025

Meet : 6.00 pm at the farm DN6 0DL (SE605134)
Leader : John Scott

This evening visit is to look for Purple Hairstreaks in the oak trees and try pond dipping again (we did this last year with excellent results), as well as trying out the new bat detecting device. (This can also be used to find Bush Crickets.)

Meet: 1.30 pm on Pit Lane (near Treeton Village Community Centre). S60 5QY
Leader : Louise Hill
This will be a joint meeting with the South Yorkshire Botany Group

Details of proposed walk
From the meeting point we will take a short walk through the housing estate to the footpath at the western end of the Treeton Tip. The tip is a naturally-restored colliery spoil heap on the northern edge of Treeton Village with areas of lowland heath, young birch woodland, scrub, tall herbs and a low flower-rich open mosaic habitat on a warm south-facing slope. A good site for flowering herbs, birds, butterflies (possibly including dingy skipper) and other insects.

The terrain is surfaced but in places slightly eroded paths with a gradual climb on the ‘Douglas Edwards Meteor Way’ to a viewpoint bench and a memorial plaque for the RAF pilot killed in a plane crash on the site in 1954. The return route offers the alternative of built steps or a sloping path of modest gradient.

Distance under 2 km including optional short diversion on worn but un-surfaced paths through the grassland and scrub.

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Meeting Reports July 2025

Date: Thursday 3rd July 2025.
Start time: 10.30am.
Duration of visit: 3 to 4 hours.
Distance: ¾ mile max.
Leaders: Nora Boyle and Colin Howes

Proprietors: Kerry & Richard Haslam. Home Farm & Lodge 

Background Notes: The Austerfield parish is celebrated for its biodiversity, not least for its geographical position as the first port of call for new species moving into the Yorkshire region. Following a popular YWT Open Gardens event on 8 May, which showed the site had a potential for a natural history survey, the leaders arranged with the site owners Kerry & Richard Haslam to organize a bioblitz, commencing with the opening of a moth trap set the previous evening.

This linear site which extends east ca. 240m from the A614 Austerfield High Street, commences with the 18^th century Home Farm main buildings, followed by a series of brick and pantile agricultural outbuildings converted into holiday lodges. Gardens are planted up with culinary herbs and a range of species to attract pollinating and nectar-feeding insects. Extensive use of recycled building materials, railway sleepers etc. have been employed in the garden design with a view to providing refuges for a range of invertebrates. The boundary hedgerows (which exhibit a fascinatingly low browse-line to the height of the miniature goats) are species-rich, provide bird nesting sites and are maintained to provide blossom for pollinating and nectaring insects. The four major canopy trees in a row down the centre of the lower pasture are remnants of an 18^th century field boundary.

CAH.